Marijuana for Anxiety: Effects, Risks, & Consumption Methods You Must Know

With the significant increase in mental disorders, 19.86% of adults, which accounts for about 50% of Americans, there is a lot of concern about the potential effects of calming drugs like Cannabis. Can Cannabis calm the mind and symptoms of mental disorders?

Among the major mental disorders, GAD affects more than 6.8 million adults all over. So it is essential to find a cure, and many researchers are pointing toward Cannabis as one. Let’s see how Cannabis helps treat anxiety and its risks to mental health.

Effects of Marijuana on Anxiety

Sleep Quality and Patterns

Anxiety and other mental health conditions are linked directly to the insufficient amount of sleep and irregular sleep patterns that we follow. As per studies, Marijuana can affect and change how and when we sleep. It also helps us to sleep relatively faster, and using this substance tends to boost the time we spend in deep sleep.

It has been shown to decrease the time people spend in rapid eye movement sleep. It can help individuals relax during their sleep, forget all that happened during the day, lie down, and rest. It can, in turn, help people suffering from PTSD and nightmares.

Cures Depression

Around 350 million people suffer from depression, and if you are not interested in things that once excited you, then you are in depression, and you are not the only one. Marijuana helps to stabilize your mood and thus decreases the symptoms of depression. It is said to reduce the level of depression caused by work-related stress.

Excessive amounts of stress can decrease the release of endocannabinoids, which are responsible for happy hormones. A decrease in the level of these hormones leads to the development of depression. Marijuana helps to restore the release of these hormones to normal levels.

Boost Appetite

Anxiety can cause a decrease in appetite and considerable weight loss, leading to other diseases, albeit depression. Consumption of Marijuana leads to blockage of receptors that tell us our satiety levels which can increase food consumption. Using a palm vape pen battery for small doses a while before you eat will allow you to have an enjoyable appetite for your meals.

Marijuana is said to boost our sense of smell, which can make food more appealing. And because smell and taste are interlinked, it may also enhance food taste.

Prevents Seizures and Schizophrenia

Mental health problems like anxiety and depression can lead to seizures and an increase in the heart rate of a particular person. Marijuana is known to affect the electrical activity of the brain. A study has shown that Marijuana has anti-seizure effects that can calm the nerves and decrease the heart rate.

Marijuana can establish a sense of reality that may help patients to see reality better. People who have Dravet Syndrome can cure seizures if they use Cannabis regularly. It also leads to decreased hallucinations which is a significant symptom of schizophrenia.

Potential Risks of Marijuana

Marijuana can lead to permanent IQ loss if used very young. Even if a person quits using Marijuana, they don’t get their intelligence back.

Consuming Marijuana can alter a person’s ability to perceive things, their eye and hand coordination, timing, and pace of their movement. All of this can adversely affect athletes.

It relaxes the mind, making it difficult to analyze a particular image and read signs. It can affect the sense of direction of a person, and they will not be able to drive appropriately.

Different Ways to Consume Marijuana

Through Inhalation

Using this method implies that Marijuana gets absorbed into your bloodstream through the lungs. This method is relatively faster than the rest of the forms. You can feel the effects almost instantly. There are two methods through which you can inhale THC:

Smoking

You have to burn the cannabis flower and then inhale the vapors. You can use pipes, blunts, water pipes, and joints to smoke Marijuana. Pipes, water pipes, and blunts are similar, but in joints, you need to roll paper and use it to smoke Marijuana.

Vaping

This method of cannabis consumption is often preferred over other methods because you can control the amount of Cannabis you want to consume. In this method, you need to add cannabis flower into a device that heats it or converts it into a liquid that can be consumed later. For vaping, you can use a vape pen and vaporizers. This vaping device may use a 510 thread battery, which helps raise the temperature and convert vape oil to vapor.

Oral

You can also consume your Cannabis orally through oral substances available on the market, but this method is slower when compared to the inhalation method. There are the following ways you can do so:

Edibles

You can find different edibles like gummies or tablets. These can be added to your favorite baked goods and consumed. It makes controlling the amount of Cannabis consumed extremely easy.

Tinctures

Tinctures are often Cannabis that gets infused into the oil. Individuals can consume it sublingually by placing it below their tongue for a few seconds and swallowing the left substance.

Conclusion

Marijuana is both potentially beneficial and harmful for human beings. There is still research to find how Cannabis can affect all human body senses. But you can take Cannabis in controlled amounts to observe the benefits of the same. While consuming Cannabis, users must remember that it is highly addictive and used under the guidance and in limited dosages.